If you are an Aussie Subcontractor and your builder needs you to start work on site without a written contract squared away, there are a handful of (arguably) innocent reasons this is happening.  

When I say innocent, what I mean is that the builder probably isn’t being predatory when he asked you this favour. More commonly, there are procedural or organisational hurdles internally for the builder that should be cause for you to proceed with caution. 

Here’s what they are: 

1. The design is likely to change, he knows it, and he doesn’t want to lock you into a scope of work before he ‘all in’ commits to giving you the job.

After all, if he signs the contract with you then you’re not going to price the changes keenly are you? He’s worried you’ll think its open slather, and he’s trying to delay giving you the leverage.  

But all is...

I’m sure this post will win me some enemies, but here goes.

The reason you can’t expect your builder to pay you on time EVERY time, in full, is because nobody in business, can expect to get paid on time EVERY time, in full.

It just isn’t a commercial reality.

And I’m not just talking about the construction industry here – unless you have a product that people pay for in advance (say for example, donuts) then there is a very real possibility that you won’t get paid on time, every single time, in full.

When I was about 10 years old my Dad took us on a holiday to North Queensland. It was the longest trip I’d ever been on by car. In some tiny country town along the way, while Dad was filling our tank with fuel, my Mum went inside to order coffees. Dad assumed my Mum paid for the fuel and vice versa. It wasn’t until we were 50km further down the road that my parents discovered that neither of them had paid.

Dad did the craziest U-turn on...